Sergey Kirov

Sergey Kirov (27 March 1886-1 December 1934) was the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party from July 1921 to January 1926, succeeding Grigory Kaminsky and preceding Levon Mirzoyan. He was the main leader of the opposition movement against Joseph Stalin within the Bolsheviks, so on 1 December 1934 he was executed, being the first victim of the Great Purge.

Biography
Sergey Kirov was born on 27 March 1886 in Urzhum, Vyatka Governorate, Russian Empire (in present-day Kirov Oblast, Russia). An orphan, he was an engineer before joining the Bolsheviks in 1904, and he was jailed after the 1905 Revolution and several more times by Nicholas II of Russia. After the Russian Revolution, he commanded the Soviet Union's military administration in Astrakhan and led the Azerbaijani Communist Party from July 1921 to January 1926, when he was made the Bolshevik leader in Leningrad. Kirov received less negative votes than Joseph Stalin, and in 1934 Stalin decided to kill Kirov as his influence grew. On 1 December 1934, he was shot in the back of the neck by assassin Leonid Nikolaev, ending the main opposition candidate to Stalin and leading to the Great Purge.